R9: Sixers @ Townsville

The Crocs have gone full bore to ensure the wooden spoon heads to NQ. Despite some early competition, they have successfully put themselves in a position that effectively ensures they get the early draft picks in the 2013 NBL Draft. Their ingenius plan may be to lull opposing teams into a false sense of security, then strike while they aren't expecting it, but it's a dangerous ploy that might even see the Crocs be beaten by the 2006 Central Districts Women's ABL team. But, as we all know, every defeat brings a joyful victory even closer.

You know a club is in trouble when the Cheerleaders get a hammering in the media! I guess they couldn’t get the WAGs to fill in and start dancing and gyrating on chairs for fear of distracting the players in the time outs.

Enter the Sixers who might just fall for a trick as old as the old "three card monte" You know the one I am talking about, “oh, we’ve just had a player retire” or “We’ve just signed a new player” and WHAMMO! the first game with the player, the team that couldn’t tie the shoe laces on a slip on boot, now becomes as dextrous as a one armed bomb disposal expert with an itchy scrotum and as nimble as a Russian ballerina dancing on Faberge eggs.

After Woolpert has shuffled the coconuts, which one will Marty select?

This is a game that will test the Sixers. They will want to keep the spot in the 4 and won’t want to be the first notch in the Croc’s belt since 30/3/12. They need a win to show every they are serious, but if the Crocs got a win, the stadium would be louder than a Sapper Hawaiin shirt.

Despite the introduction of Nevill, The Sixers have been playing as a team and should snag this one by 7 !

Yeah the game makes me a bit nervous too... Adelaide can be a bit like the Boomers, win the games they shouldnt and lose the games they shouldnt. It is a bit of a pivotal game because you just know someone will lose to the crocs soon enough, we just hope its not us!

Townsville play with a similar lack of direction to Adelaide last year, only they are playing even worse than the Sixers did.

The Crocs have no idea how to win. No Abney should help, but you still have Hinder and Allen stinking up the frontline.

What amazes me about Woolpert lately is that he plays every guy, every game. You look at all the other teams, and most of them have at least one guy that's not in the regular rotation. All Crocs see significant minutes. There is no reason why Ben Allen or Russell Hinder should even set foot on that court barring severe foul trouble for the starters. They instantly hemorrhage points the second they start playing minutes.

Anyway, playing a shallower sub pattern isn't going to magically make them win, it's just one of the myraid gaping deficiencies of this team. The most glaring yet fixable problems lately have been Jacob Holmes'cancerous effect on the offense and Russell Hinder's inability to do anything of value.

This will be a battle of the big men. Who's butt will warm their seat on the bench the most, the shortest of our 3 centre's, 6'10 Pero Vasiljevic or 6'11 Rip Van Allen from the Crocs? Its not really a fair contest though as Allen more likely to get some game time.

The strange thing about Ben Allen is that this year he is actually putting up better numbers than his career stats, yet he's still stinking up the floor for Townsville. And it must be said that if the Crocs had Nevill from the start (or indeed had they kept Schenscher), Allen would be strictly bench material who only gets on to give the other guy a rest.

In his 9 games this year Allen has played 1 minute and 45 seconds more than Luke Schenscher has in 8 games for Adelaide (171:28 against 169:43). Big Red is putting up slightly better numbers than his ex team mate though (7.0 points, 6.4 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 1.3 blocks). The difference is that while Schenscher is in the doldrums points wise (18 against Sydney excluded), he is making up for a lot of that on defense and with his passing on offense. Allen is a passenger when on the floor while Big Red isn't.

Allen is just a gaping hole on defense, and sets absolutely terrible screens on offense.

He is a bit of a chucker too, so it upsets the offense when he takes Holmesian shots out of rhthym.

He has a decent outside shot when his confidence is up, but his release is so low that he can't get it off unless wide open.

He just has such a terrible head for the game: if he isn't scoring he won't grab in rebounds and won't put any effort in.

I still maintain that if some of the older guys on the team hold him down and shave his head he will become more of a man, and start focusing on the game at hand rather than his current priorities: his hair, chewing gum and hitting the club afterwards.

Ben Allen really should take a long hard look at himself and where he is at right now.

This year he's had the perfect opportunity to make the Crocs centre spot his own with Schenscher moving back to Adelaie, and basically he's blown it to the point where he's sitting on the bench in preference to Russell Hinder, and now the team have gone and signed Luke Nevill which essentially means Allen has gone from the possible #1 centre in Townsville to being the 3rd wheel.

Its not good for his career. Will the Crocs keep him after this season? Will any other NBL team even want him based on his performances? And that includes any possible new team. He needs to step up, but I can't see it happening.

And they get their win, we are always the ones to fall to these types of things. Oh well they boys cant linger on it too much cos the games are so close. Just sad how we can get 2 wins on Perth but cant beat a team would should handle.

How about giving credit where it's due. That was a good game and we won. We match up against the 36ers pretty well. . Your guys played well, the swamp was loud and rocking. For us , a win had to happen soon, and looks like the Wizard is getting his Mo Jo back. Thank the basketball gods that you have Schenscher, do you want Ben Ellen?

The sad thing is, every Adelaide fan saw this coming.Another blown opportunity with 2 winnable games this weekend to get a decent record. 2 wins vs Perth surrounded by a 30 point loss to the Tigers and giving the Crocs their first win...what?Gibbo's missed free throws hurt but wouldn't have been close without him.

Crocs out rebounded Adelaide 37-36, 16 were from Holmes. Adelaide's best was Weigh with 9. The 36ers had 5 more assists (14-9, 7 to Gibson) and 3 more steals (5-2, Schenscher had 2 of them). One thing that hurt us tonight was getting 5 team fouls up in the first 3:48 of the last, 3 of them against Mitch Creek who got called twice within 9 seconds at one point. And Ervin, who was nailing both FT's just about every time, always seemed to be the one who ended up at the line.

Other than the Crocs getting a win finally, neither side should be happy with this game. I watched a pirate NBL TV broadcast and neither teams defense was much to write home about and the less said about both team's offense the better.

He only played 13:42 but the Crocs looked good with Luke Nevill playing centre. Nevill now has a 4-2 lead over Luke Schenscher in head to head match ups.

@Holden V8: Ben had the exact same opportunity last year while Schenscher sat out the first ten or so rounds with that hip injury. And with the same result.

For every increment of progress he makes, there is just way too much stuff wrong with him that can't be taught - stone hands, no fire, can't jump, can't run, can't move sideways, no feel for the game whatsoever, scared of contact. And he's not that young. He'll be 26 soon.

Sorry mate, it's curtains. See you in the QBL.

What makes him worse is that he simply cannot contribute in limited minutes. If he gets ten or fifteen minutes court time, he will give you goose eggs across the box score. If you give him 30 minutes and 20 shot attempts, he might give you 15 points and 5 or so rebounds, but you will definitely lose the ball game. So where does that leave him? State league.

Its beyond common knowledge that Clarke should be gone. He wont be able to take this team anywhere. Its up to management now to work out the finances and pull the trigger whilst the season is still alive. With the correct coaching this roster could cause mass distruction for the opposotion but unde the current regime its competitive but without any killer instint. Was always going to be a loss in TSV, we always lose these games.

@Kobe we are in the top 4 have had 1 bad game and you still want the coach sacked. If Gibbo and Luke hit their FT's we win last night. Weigh hits one of his 3 attempts , we win. Things aren't as horrible as you suggest.

BJF, 1 bad game is a horrible review of the record so far. Have lost several winnable games. The team is confused with all the erratic subs and the in game coaching. Top 4 with no conviction or confidence about them. Its a powerhouse roster, but a poorly executed team. IF the 6ers do make the playoffs, the way they are playing, they will simply be making up the numbers.... i dare you to pick Adelaide to beat Perth and NZ come playoff time. Not under this coach, he's not up to the job. So yeah it is as horrible as I put it. 4th out of 8 with a 30 point blow out to Melbourne, double digit lead at home to the Hawks, 3qtr time lead against the Breakers and a loss to 0 for 9 team i believe it was.... horrible.

Kobe, the Crocs were 0-10. BJF is just trying to make sure anyone bothers to turn up tomorrow.

The reality is if we drop that game to the Kings they'll have no choice but to pull the trigger on Clarke. This roster should be much better than 5-4 and losing to one of the worst teams in NBL history.

#691, sorry mate, but i think it stops being a protected result after the game has been broadcast on free to air tv. if you are in Perth, try to avoid going on a basketball website when three quarters of the country have already watched the game.

If there can be any consolation, I saved you watching Sydney's 5 pt second quarter and 19 point half. Appalling.

Bizzy as far as i'm concerned it's the coaches responsibiliy to make sure he gets the best game possible out of all his players on game night. i understand players are only human and have off nights every now and then but any clown can see that just by getting our free throw percentage up would improve our situation 38% is not good enough and it's not just this game it has been low. and thats just 1 improvement that could be made he's ment to be a development coach you would think free throws, rebounding, boxing out etc are all fundamentals of the game he should be concentrating on at training not complex plays that when they don't work leaves the players standing around looking like a bunch of fools who don't know what they are doing which saps their creativity and confidence. All i see at games lately is a bunch of players who are so scared of doing something wrong that they are tense and anyone who has played basketball knows when you are tense your shots very rarely go in. That is why i will say our losses are 85% marty's fault and 15% players fault. come on marty loosen the shackles a bit and let the players play their natural game it will be more enjoyable for the players and the crowd.

XY - I have been a modertor on this site helping Isaac from basically day dot, and have no problem coming on here for eight years reading game threads and avoiding results. Sometimes this site gets hit with spam attacks overnight, I'll come in delete a whole page worth of threads, go into the Sixer game thread and clean up any posts in there and avoid the other threads. No one else has had a problem giving away game results in the wrong threads so I don't see why you can't extend the same courtesy.

FWIW's I watched the game anyway cause I'm a hoops junkie and your point was correct the NBL this year has had some disgraceful shooting percentages. The league has gone from a high scoring league to a grind it out fest in the space of three seasons.

A really good team will embrace a week off and refine itself to be even better. Adelaide went backwards. The schedule has nothing to do with the poor form. Some very suspect coaching decisions from subs made and not made to set plays designed. I have no faith, but as a die hard fan I hope the team the best. But nothing will really be achieved at the club until they get some tried and tested coaches in to let this team go out on the court and play. To much restriction has this team very uptight and it wont lead to success.

Sydney will probably cause headaches tomorrow and that game could go either way. As a fan of the team, not the coaching, i just hope the players do what they do best. Should be a 20+ win but wont be.

@bk your argument doesn't have much logic to it.Petrie and Gibson are producing at the same level as previously under Wright , Cadee has doubled his output but that would relate to more court time IMO. If Clarke is scaring these guys and restricting their freedom and creativity then Wright must have done it too

@Kobe Crocs are a different team to the first 10 games with Neville on board. You cant say he didn't have a positive impact. As i said before we make our normal FT% we win. We get the out of bounds call with about 40s to go that was incorrect , we win. Take Neville out of this team and replace those 13 mins with Allen / Hinder/ Abney we win.

Bye's have had a historically negative impact on teams of all codes. Bye's are only good if you are carrying an injury and need the extra week /break

@BJF ok petrie,gibson and cadee doing well stats wise but everyone knows stats don't always tell the right story. The point i was trying to make is Marty should be identifying where the team needs to improve and train the players accordingly. the area i think needs the most improving is free throws a free throw should be the easiest shot to make and percentage wise should at least be 70% we need more desire to grab the rebounds and should be killing teams in the rebound count with 2 7footers. then there is help defence how many more times do i have to watch an opposition player get past 3 of our players for an easy lay up. How hard is it to set a screen and get a player free for an open shot or make a backdoor cut when the oppositions concentration is elsewhere all are basic basketball fundamentals that a development coach should be instilling in his players

As a moderator for so many years, I would have thought you would have more restraint than to go around throwing cheap insults. I thought that was what you were here to clean up, not dish out.

I understand your frustration, but in this case you lucked out. I made a fair and valid comparison between two games, one in the game thread that had been over for hours, and the other which had just finished on TV. How long would you have asked me to wait to allow you to watch your replay before making those observations? Would two days be sufficient in future?

Mate you're getting pedantic here. I didn't luck out; you just didn't post with some courtesy.

It is reasonable to expect no one to be watching replays of games from two weeks ago, but from two hours ago it is reasonable to expect that many people would be. It is very reasonable to expect on a South Australian based forum for people to look at the game thread for the 36ers match prior to watching the televised game that night.

I shouldn't have to explain that you could have made the same point in general without giving away a result of another match from the same night.

This is my last post on this, you can agree, you can disagree, you could decide to be vindictive and give away results for the rest of the year, that's fine whatever. I'm just saying there has been eight years of history of that not really happening around here (although no rules stating so) and I would consider it common courtesy to fellow posters if it stays that way. I view to be basic as common manners.

The televised game that you are talking about, on this South Australian centric website, had already been played in full in SA. It is not my fault the game was being telecast on 3 hour delay into your part of the world. You need to take that into account if you don't want to know scores. I think you just need to stop overreacting with petulant displays of abuse and show some of that courtesy you are asking of me.

Then it is not my fault that you decided to tape the Sydney game and watch on delay. Or on NBL TV. Or whatever. Stop blaming the rest of the world for your problems and take responsibility for your own actions. Or, in future, perhaps post and let us know once you have got around to watching your replay so that we can all stop holding our tongues for your benefit.